>The Carpenter’s Daughter

>We make our living making things.Sure, we’d rather make baby cribs and ox yokes,But that’s not what they want. We gotta pay for our food too.

And they don’t ask if you wanna, they just tell you.The Romans like their crosses big and heavy;The colonel told my dad they’re supposed to scare people.

You have to find a big tree and then cut it just right.The whole family worked on it all week.We was all sorta proud when we got done.

Then the soldiers came and paid us.We got all busy makin’ other stuff, you know, And we didn’t think about it any more.

Until ta ht mornin’ I was cleanin’ up for Passover.There was a lotta noise outside, and this crowd–All kinds a people headin’ toward the cemetery.Some was soldiers but mostly people just watchin’.

And in the middle was this guy carryin’ a cross.They half kill you with a whip, Then they make you carry your own cross.People stand around makin’ fun– they do it all the time.

But then I saw it was our cross.You could tell the way we cut the wood, The way we fastened it together.

And the guy carrin’ it, I kinda recognized him too.He was all bloody, layin’ on the ground.

But you could tell he’s the rabbi everybody’s talkin’ about.Some say he’s the one we’re waitin’ for to be free.Everybody says he helps people, when he talks it makes sense.

And now here he is with the soldiers beatin’ on him, And our people makin’ fun a him.

You could see he couldn’t go on.But then the soldiers grab this black guy, Make him carry it instead.

Since it was our cross I decided to follow along, See what happened.

They take off all your clothes, pound nails through your hands.You hang there naked, dyin’, with a rope around your chest.Only low class people, like slaves, they do that to.Or dangerous people, like startin’ a revolution.

His mother was there watchin’. That’s what got me.I wanted to tell her I was sorry, us makin’ the cross and all.But what was I supposed to say?

If we hadn’t a made it they’d a killed us.And what good would that a done anybody?

When I got home everybody asked me where I was.I didn’t want a tell ’em. But I had to.

I said I was watchin’ Jesus die on our cross.He Was Here by Ivan J. Kauffman

I’m not a poetry person by nature, but this book has me hooked. You can surely tell why, given this example. It gives me alot to think about, most of which I can’t yet put words to. I just thought I’d share.